Author: (Horrocks). Vining, Major L.E.
Title: HELD BY THE BOLSHEVIKS The Diary of a British Officer in Russia, 1919-1920.
Description: Saint Catherine Press, N.d. c.[1924]. 1st Ed. x + 281pp. Port. frontis., 7 plates. Some light browning, from the library of Ann Savours Shirley original cloth, heavily dampstained with minor bubbling, spine bumped. ¶ With 12pp. booklet of contemporary reviews affixed to pastedown. Inscribed to pastedown ‘To Lieut General Sir Brian Horrocks KCB, DSO with compliments and memories of good & bad times from L.E. Vining. They were together imprisoned in Moscow, and Horrocks has nine specific entries in the index. With pencil underlining and ruling with occasional notes in pencil by Horrocks and noting particularly his earlier mentions in the text. ‘Horrocks is seedy to-day. He has got a temperature of 101 degs. He took some quinine ... Exhibition dancing was given by Captain Horrocks who is A1 at stage and ordinary dancing ... Horrocks has completely got over his jaundice and is looking very fit ...’ Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Gwynne Horrocks, (1895–1985) British Army officer. In 1919 Horrocks was posted to Russia as part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War. His first task, along with a party of 13 British officers and 30 other ranks, was to guard a train delivering 27 carriages of shells to the White Army in Omsk, the journey took more than a month, and as the only party member fluent in Russian, Horrocks had to deal with many of the difficulties encountered. His next assignment was in Yekaterinburg in the Urals, where he was appointed second in command of a training school for non-commissioned officers attached to the Anglo-Russian Brigade. Although British forces were ordered home shortly afterwards, Horrocks and another officer, George Hayes, remained to advise the First Siberian Army. He was captured by the Red Army on 7 January 1920 and spent 10 months as a prisoner, narrowly surviving severe typhus. The British government negotiated a prisoner release, and Horrocks left Russia on 29 October, returning home on the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Delhi.

Keywords: NAVAL AND MILITARY; GENERAL MILITARY


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